The Andes region in the south of Argentina and Chile is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. When I used to hear the word patagonia I would think of the nice clothing brand but nothing else. After climbing the mountain that is the patagonia brand symbol I realized that Patagonia was so much more.

I have now been in the southern part of South America for a month and I have explored some of the coolest places. But in this post I will be discussing two, El Calafate and El Chalten.

I spent only two days in El Calafate Argentina becasue that is all the time you need. The reason people go to this place is to visit the glacier at Perito Moreno. I had no expectations for this glacier as I kept thinking about seeing a glacier in Jasper. I thought it would be cool and something to see but I never knew how amazing it would be. First off the town of Calafate was super cute and nice. It has a main street full of shops, resturants and parks. It is a big tourist town so there are a lot of people there but it is amazing to wonder around. Since it is a tourist town it is really expensive and I am happy we only spent a few days there. No workaway at this place, but we got an airbnb which was super exciting, since it was the first bed and pillows after sleeping in a tent.

To get to the glacier you have to take a two hour bus through the mountains which is super nice. Unfortunatley/ Fortunatly, it was raining and cold when I got there. It is a national park and once you pay the entrance fee you get to a lodge. There is a map that shows multiple routes to the glacier, som eeasy and some longer and more difficult. Of course I chose the longest one but it was only a two hour walk along the lake and you got views of the glacier from all around. It wasn’t a busy day becasue of the weather keeping people away which made it even more incredible. As you walked along a nice path you could see views of the mountains and the icy blue lake. Once we were close enough you could start to hear the glacier before even seeing it. It was a sound that I didn’t know would be so mesmorizing. It sounded like a stream of water and every once in a while a huge bang, almost like thunder would erupt and you knew a piece of the glacier inside had fallen. I spent a long time staring at the glacier in aww. It was amazing. I couldn’t tell if it was white or blue in colour. The pictures do not do it justice, for the size and look of the glacier was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. Once the walk was finished, I enjoyed a nice sandwich in the lodge before the bus home.

The next morning I hoped on another bus and went to a new place called El Chalten. I was excited about this place because I heard nothing but amazing things about the hiking here. An added bonus was all the parks and hikes in this area are free, which was a nice change of pace from everything else I have been doing. This town is super cute, a small town tucked in the center of a valley. You are surrounded at all times by mountains, whichever way you look and are right beside a beautiful river. In this town I stayed my first three nights at a hostel, in a four person room. I got the top bunk which I normally love, however I will explain in a bit why that turned out to be the worst.

The first full day we had was the nicest weather wise and we decided to take advantage of it by doing the big hike. We started at 9am after a good breakfast and headed out to the trail head. The nice thing is all the trail heads are along the edges of this town. After researching this hike we saw that it was a long one and a medium difficulty until the last part which was said to be extreme difficulty. We had our electrolytes and food all packed. And we were off, it was a beautiful hike. Right from the beginning, and thankfully the weather, we were able to see the peak of the fitzroy mountain 90% of the hike. We walked through valleys and up hills. It was such a beautiful day we had just our tshirts on for half the hike. The river that cut through the path was a great place to rest and fill up water (there is something about fresh glacier water).

After the first 3 hours, we felt good. The hike had been easy enough at that point and we were excited to get to the difficult part so we could get to the top. One thing on all of these hikes that makes me laugh is the hand written signs at the base of a path saying ” Caution, extreme difficulty” I always think in my head how hard could this really be. Well the sign was right, it was extreme. We were climbing straight up for 1.5 hours on a path that was mainly piles of rocks. It was hard. We got about 30 minutes from the top and the “path” consists of just shale. Once again with no walking poles we had to be super careful. Once we got to the top I felt such a feeling of relief. At the top you are shown a beautiful glacier lake with the peaks behind. If you go to the left there is another little path that takes you to another more blue lake. It was incredible. One of those places where words cannot do it justice. We sat on the edge of the lake, with the sun shining eating our tuna sandwiches and relaxing.

Then we began the hike down. Now I thought in my head going up slants was always going to be the hardest part, but I found out my body hates the going down. While on the shale, I skidded down a piece and tweaked my knee. At that point we still had 9km to walk and my knee although a little sore felt fine. Shortly, another km down I realized my knee was not fine. But I knew the only thing I could do was keep going. I knew once I was out of the really hard part the rest was pretty flat and managable so we kept on. My left knee was the one that was injured and since that is my dominant leg, my right knee had to take on some more pressure, which in turn made my right knee start to ache. On the last 2 km it is all downhill, with sort of stairs that had been made by logs. This was the death of me. I was in soo much pain almost crying but I knew I had to get home. We finally got down the mountain and had to walk 1km back to the hostel. I was in so much pain. Once back at the hostel (On the top bunk) I crawled into bed, took some pain meds and elevated my knees. I looked at my phone and we had logged over 45,000 steps in that hike. Crazy!

I rested this night and then the next day, it was raining and cold so we did a small, flat hike to a beautiful waterfall for the day. The following day my knees were still hurting me so I did half a hike and then went back to the town and enjoyed an amazing lunch and relaxed. Overall both of these towns have so much to offer and both were added to my list of favorite places I have been on this trip.